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Cybertek Electric: Issue #4 7/30/96
?ss es flestra ferdha f?r; en sk?lpr es sverdha
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I know a fifteenth, which Thiodhroerir the dwarf sang before Delling's door.
He sang might to the Aesir, power to the elves, and understanding to Odin.
Cybertek Electric: Issue Four
July 30, 1996
edited by Thomas Icom/IIRG
<ticom@l0pht.com> <thomas.icom@iirg.com>
Complements of OCL/Magnitude's Project Blackthorn,
and The International Information Retrieval Guild (IIRG)
Table of Contents
=================
by Mujahadin
- From Crossbows to Cryptography: Techno-Thwarting The State
by Chuck Hammill
- Vesoft and the Hewlett Packard 3000
by Black IC
---/////---
Hacking the Human Body
by Mujahadin
Many of us in the computer 'underground' are used to seeing various postings
about bugs and backdoors in various pieces of software and hardware that make
up this vast culture that we are a part of. But how many of us know, that for
example, the human body contains many weaknesses, bugs if you will, that can
be exploited just as easily as Wu_ftp?
The reasons for this knowledge not being widely available are obvious. The
people who hold these secrets are like the master hackers who only give out
these powerful secrets to those they implicitly trust, or to those who have
shown their worth by diligent study and application of requisite materials. It
is not my purpose here to disseminate such information recklessly. Rather it
is to impart the reader with a respect for the capabilities of the human body
and the weaknesses contained therein, and of some of the basic ways these can
be used to protect yourself against a physical attack in the most effective
way possible....you don't want your aggressor to get back up. It NEVER pays
to be a nice guy during the escalation of a physical confrontation. Only in
the movies do the nice guys walk away, and not have to turn around.
First some background concerning body mechanics. The human body, whether
through evolution or divine creation, moves with circular motion on many axes
simultaneously. Next time you walk to the bathroom or to the refrigerator to
refill your beer stein, try walking rigid, like a robot would, using just
linear motion. You will see immediately that this is an UNnatural method of
movement and how uncomfortable it is and to help me prove the theory behind
this article, just how much motion is wasted by this linear activity. It
takes a CONCERTED effort to maintain balance in this robotic movement. So now
we see the economy of motion and ease of action that the natural way our
bodies want to move gives us. Using this economy of motion and ease of action
now takes us to my next point, physically manipulating the human body in an
unnatural fashion.
While many parts of the human body are very flexible, we can say that nothing
has full 360 degree rotation, and it is in this area I will address most of
this article to. Joint manipulation is the easiest way to start the
discussion. The best way to describe a joint manipulation is by example.
Open your right hand exposing the palm upward. Then place the index finger
of your left hand (with the rest of the fingers tucked in) into the right
palm. Now close your right hand around your index finger. Rotate your
right hand around feeling the limits of movement and committing them to
memory. Open the right hand back up and put the index finger AND the middle
finger of the left hand both in the palm, closing it. Rotate the right hand
once again sensing the difference this makes in this technique. Two fingers
are ALWAYS better than one, however, make sure that the two fingers you plan
on seizing are located next to each other on the hand.. or else you may lose
your grasp due to the difficult to grab shape this makes. One can also grab
separate fingers on an attackers same hand using both of your hands. This
is a great technique and is called separating the bone. Try this on a friend
(or enemy), but if on a friendly victim be sure to be careful, and have the
action performed on you so you know what this feels like.
Moving to the wrist. There are plenty of things to do with the wrists but
for the sake of clarity I wont be discussing these much because placement of
the hands is very important and since I don't have the tools at my disposal
to include photographs, then I wouldn't want anyone to feel secure with just
a text example. But I will say this: get a friend and try out the rotational
limits of the wrist using one hand and then two. That's as easy as I can make
it without photos and for the sake of wasted bandwidth. The elbow is a very
self-explanatory structure, limitwise.
The forearm has some rotation from the elbow due to the radial and ulna, but
this is secondary to the lack of real movement that the elbow has. This makes
it an extremely vulnerable architecture when it does become accessible for a
technique. This is the problem though, because the elbow tends to stay
behind the weapon that precedes it. Namely the fist or whatever the fist is
holding. If one was truly skilled at circular motion then it would be no
problem to simply circle around an attack to make the elbow more accessible,
or avert an attack and depend on the attackers over exertion of his own
sphere of influence....his own over extension of his circular motion, which
by the way helps us make another point.
Depending on the attacker to not be in tune with his own natural motion, to be
clumsy and aloof, ignorant of how he moves, can also be a great key in
overcoming an opponent. Sort of like a buffer overwrite.... get the attacker
to overcommit...when he/she does, then take the advantage. If you happen to
get this far then personally I wouldn't go for the elbow at this juncture, but
for the purpose of discussion if you get in a bind and you have hold of an
arm, then pull downward violently to shake the opponent, causing a mild shock
to the back of the head where it meets the neck (this actually happens). Do
your best to take advantage in this moment of weakness by turning the arm over
placing another hand on the outside of the elbow pressuring downwards.
Experimentation with this pressure is absolutely necessary for you to feel how
this works. Also don't place the hand too high or too low... this can cause
the attacker to fold his elbow, opening you up to a vicious counterattack with
one of the body's most powerful weapons. Interesting that one of the bodies
weakest structures at its opposition, can become one of the strongest weapons
the body has. As for the shoulder, just move your own shoulder around to its
extremes and you will easily see how its weaknesses can be exploited.
Continuing our discussion of the elbow from above, once the elbow is locked,
hopefully you would have enough forethought to make sure your attacker is
slightly away from you and bent over. Take this opportunity to jam his
shoulder with plenty of force in the direction of his jaw. This is a neat
little bonus of the straight elbow lock. Also preemptive striking to the
shoulder lessens any force of an incoming blow. This is what Bruce Lee called
a 'stop hit'. But this takes flawless timing and is out of context for this
article.
Visiting the neck area we see several options. The throat provides us with
much soft collapsible mass which can be accessed quite easily, as long as
speed and accuracy are on your side. A quick and powerful jab to the larynx,
either above or below, gains us some time to explore more possibilities in our
defensive posture. We can now become the offensive party if we are successful
here. Note that also on the sides of the neck exist sternomatocollastoid
muscle structures (for exact placement of these check your Gray's Anatomy
Coloring Book) which give us ample space to access several 'pressure points'
which if manipulated (read SQUEEZED) properly will cause the brain to prompt
the body to lift up on the toes, thereby weakening any effort of your attacker
to strike with any force. I have only met one person completely immune to the
initial pain sequence produced by this technique, and it made for lots of
interesting experimentation, and unfortunately for our immune friend, lots of
bruises as well. Also within this muscle structure are the carotid arteries.
A well placed strike to the outsides of the neck will seize the muscles up,
causing the blood supply to the brain to be shut off. Contrary to popular
belief, this is how a strike to the temples work as well. To revive from such
a strike requires massage and gentle rotation of the neck structure to return
the muscles to their previous state.
The eyes are an obvious weakness as is the nose, be it from straight on,
upwards, sideways, or even downwards. The ears are interesting because of
the occasional airtight capabilities. Have you ever been slapped on the
ear? The air pressure involved with that is tremendous for such a little
canal. Its no small wonder then that partial and often full deafness arises
out of such little force. There are also several pressure points located
beneath the ear which have differing effects, depending on how utilized. There
also exists on the back of the skull at the base where the vertebrae end which
when struck causes yet another shutdown of the brain due to the contraction of
muscles. Don't forget this key clue: where the head goes.... the body follows.
Moving in a downward direction we have the ribs, where nerve fibers weave
in and out between the ribcage members. This takes practice but finding
these aren't too difficult. There is a term where nerves are exposed to
the underside of the flesh when running between muscle bundles. Its called
a cavity, and cavity striking is an acquired skill. Bodybuilders are known
for their extra musculature. Obviously. But with this muscularity comes a
nice big weakness which can be exploited by someone with little or no muscle
mass at all.....justice ;). It seems as though with this extra muscle comes
extra cavity space...i.e., more exposed nerve fiber. Need I say more on
this?
The floating ribs are susceptible to becoming dislodged from their location,
given the right angle of approach. The abdominal area is naturally tense and
as well should be, unless trained in advanced deep abdominal conditioning
which has been a protected secret for centuries. I have seen examples of this
training and it is quite impressive. No tricks involved. I can spot a fake
from a thousand miles away. Real 'Iron Body' practitioners can be struck with
a variety of implements using full force with no damage done. All this is
done with complete relaxation of the abdominal muscle wall. But there is a
flaw in even the tensing of the abdominal area. The muscles that make up this
area are primarily weaved in a direction that naturally opposes force from the
front. If we introduce a spirryllic action slightly downwards to this mass
then we have exploited the weakness in the weave.
The groin structure is really self explanatory, save for the few fanatical
practitioners of several martial arts who practice for hours a technique
where the testicles are drawn up inside the scrotum. But these guys are a
dead giveaway, wherein they must stand in a particular posture for this to
happen, exposing other areas to vulnerability.
On the sides and slightly to the back of the thigh belong the sciatic nerves.
Repeated strikes to this area will definitely cause weakness in the legs, and
eventually an inability to stand straight without wavering. The knees, when a
person is standing straight up, are extremely vulnerable to being sheared
downward or to the side... this is very violent and should only be used in a
VERY life threatening situation. When slightly flexed then the knees are
vulnerable from the sides and back. Actually, the knees are ALWAYS weak from
the sides. There exist many pressure points on the thigh, shin and arch of the
foot that I will not address, as these require pinpoint accuracy to administer
to and this is beyond the scope of this treatment, however I will say that I
heard a story of a Special Forces Sergeant who, after being injured in Vietnam
had to walk with a cane, became so adept with the cane that in a particular
barfight all he had to do to subdue his attacker was stomp the cane down on
the arch of the foot, thereby disrupting the intricate pattern of bone and
ligament causing separation of said bone and ligament many times over.
Needless to say, with ZEN-like simplicity, the altercation was over before it
started. With this in mind, when in a bear hug type situation, never fail to
stomp down on the arch of the foot, unless you are suspended in the air. Then
it is a simple matter of using your head to make your point, while kicking at
the knees or shins.
There are many more areas to address here and I have selectively left much out
because of the damaging nature of the techniques. I didn't pay too much
attention to the circular nature of the body in the offensive posture because
this is very advanced thought. To sum up this circular theory, think of
spinning a yo-yo around in a circle while the string is fully unwraped from
the axle.... what makes it spin faster?? what opposing forces are involved
here?? and where is the actual fulcrumatic action?? These are clues that if
experimented with to even a slight degree, will give the reader a great
understanding as to how a greater amount of force can be generated by using
the natural endowments of the body.
Greets to the guys in VLAD, GHeap, DrHavoc, prophet, Special Forces then,
now, and forever, and to Thomas Icom.
Mujahadin - the real Desert Storm.
-///-
FROM CROSSBOWS TO CRYPTOGRAPHY: TECHNO-THWARTING THE STATE
by Chuck Hammill
weaponsrus@aol.com
Given at the Future of Freedom Conference, November 1987
Public Domain: Duplicate and Distribute Freely
You know, technology--and particularly computer
technology--has often gotten a bad rap in Libertarian cir-
cles. We tend to think of Orwell's 1984, or Terry Gilliam's
Brazil, or the proximity detectors keeping East Berlin's
slave/citizens on their own side of the border, or the so-
phisticated bugging devices Nixon used to harass those on
his "enemies list." Or, we recognize that for the price of
a ticket on the Concorde we can fly at twice the speed of
sound, but only if we first walk thru a magnetometer run by
a government policeman, and permit him to paw thru our be-
longings if it beeps.
But I think that mind-set is a mistake. Before there
were cattle prods, governments tortured their prisoners with
clubs and rubber hoses. Before there were lasers for
eavesdropping, governments used binoculars and lip-readers.
Though government certainly uses technology to oppress, the
evil lies not in the tools but in the wielder of the tools.
In fact, technology represents one of the most promis-
ing avenues available for re-capturing our freedoms from
those who have stolen them. By its very nature, it favors
the bright (who can put it to use) over the dull (who can-
not). It favors the adaptable (who are quick to see the
merit of the new( over the sluggish (who cling to time-
tested ways). And what two better words are there to de-
scribe government bureaucracy than "dull" and "sluggish"?
One of the clearest, classic triumphs of technology
over tyranny I see is the invention of the man-portable
crossbow. With it, an untrained peasant could now reliably
and lethally engage a target out to fifty meters--even if
that target were a mounted, chain-mailed knight. (Unlike
the longbow, which, admittedly was more powerful, and could
get off more shots per unit time, the crossbow required no
formal training to utilize. Whereas the longbow required
elaborate visual, tactile and kinesthetic coordination to
achieve any degree of accuracy, the wielder of a crossbow
could simply put the weapon to his shoulder, sight along the
arrow itself, and be reasonably assured of hitting his tar-
get.)
Moreover, since just about the only mounted knights
likely to visit your average peasant would be government
soldiers and tax collectors, the utility of the device was
plain: With it, the common rabble could defend themselves
not only against one another, but against their governmental
masters. It was the medieval equivalent of the armor-
piercing bullet, and, consequently, kings and priests (the
medieval equivalent of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Crossbows) threatened death and excommunication, respec-
tively, for its unlawful possession.
Looking at later developments, we see how technology
like the firearm--particularly the repeating rifle and the
handgun, later followed by the Gatling gun and more advanced
machine guns--radically altered the balance of interpersonal
and inter-group power. Not without reason was the Colt .45
called "the equalizer." A frail dance-hall hostess with one
in her possession was now fully able to protect herself
against the brawniest roughneck in any saloon. Advertise-
ments for the period also reflect the merchandising of the
repeating cartridge rifle by declaring that "a man on
horseback, armed with one of these rifles, simply cannot be
captured." And, as long as his captors were relying upon
flintlocks or single-shot rifles, the quote is doubtless a
true one.
Updating now to the present, the public-key cipher
(with a personal computer to run it) represents an equiv-
alent quantum leap--in a defensive weapon. Not only can
such a technique be used to protect sensitive data in one's
own possession, but it can also permit two strangers to ex-
change information over an insecure communications
channel--a wiretapped phone line, for example, or
skywriting, for that matter)--without ever having previously
met to exchange cipher keys. With a thousand-dollar com-
puter, you can create a cipher that a multi-megabuck CRAY
X-MP can't crack in a year. Within a few years, it should
be economically feasible to similarly encrypt voice communi-
cations; soon after that, full-color digitized video images.
Technology will not only have made wiretapping obsolete, it
will have totally demolished government's control over in-
formation transfer.
I'd like to take just a moment to sketch the mathemat-
ics which makes this principle possible. This algorithm is
called the RSA algorithm, after Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman
who jointly created it. Its security derives from the fact
that, if a very large number is the product of two very
large primes, then it is extremely difficult to obtain the
two prime factors from analysis of their product. "Ex-
tremely" in the sense that if primes p and q have 100
digits apiece, then their 200-digit product cannot in gen-
eral be factored in less than 100 years by the most powerful
computer now in existence.
The "public" part of the key consists of (1) the prod-
uct pq of the two large primes p and q, and (2) one fac-
tor, call it x , of the product xy where xy = {(p-1) *
(q-1) + 1}. The "private" part of the key consists of the
other factor y.
Each block of the text to be encrypted is first turned
into an integer--either by using ASCII, or even a simple
A=01, B=02, C=03, ... , Z=26 representation. This integer
is then raised to the power x (modulo pq) and the resulting
integer is then sent as the encrypted message. The receiver
decrypts by taking this integer to the (secret) power y
(modulo pq). It can be shown that this process will always
yield the original number started with.
What makes this a groundbreaking development, and why
it is called "public-key" cryptography," is that I can
openly publish the product pq and the number x , while
keeping secret the number y --so that anyone can send me
an encrypted message, namely
x
a (mod pq) ,
but only I can recover the original message a , by taking
what they send, raising it to the power y and taking the
result (mod pq). The risky step (meeting to exchange cipher
keys) has been eliminated. So people who may not even trust
each other enough to want to meet, may still reliably ex-
change encrypted messages--each party having selected and
disseminated his own pq and his x , while maintaining
the secrecy of his own y .
Another benefit of this scheme is the notion of a "dig-
ital signature," to enable one to authenticate the source of
a given message. Normally, if I want to send you a message,
I raise my plaintext a to your x and take the result (mod
your pq) and send that.
However, if in my message, I take the plaintext a and
raise it to my (secret) power y , take the result (mod my
pq), then raise that result to your x (mod your pq) and
send this, then even after you have normally "decrypted" the
message, it will still look like garbage. However, if you
then raise it to my public power x , and take the result
(mod my public pq ), so you will not only recover the ori-
ginal plaintext message, but you will know that no one but I
could have sent it to you (since no one else knows my secret
y ).
And these are the very concerns by the way that are to-
day tormenting the Soviet Union about the whole question of
personal computers. On the one hand, they recognize that
American schoolchildren are right now growing up with com-
puters as commonplace as sliderules used to be--more so, in
fact, because there are things computers can do which will
interest (and instruct) 3- and 4-year-olds. And it is pre-
cisely these students who one generation hence will be going
head-to-head against their Soviet counterparts. For the
Soviets to hold back might be a suicidal as continuing to
teach swordsmanship while your adversaries are learning
ballistics. On the other hand, whatever else a personal
computer may be, it is also an exquisitely efficient copying
machine--a floppy disk will hold upwards of 50,000 words of
text, and can be copied in a couple of minutes. If this
weren't threatening enough, the computer that performs the
copy can also encrypt the data in a fashion that is all but
unbreakable. Remember that in Soviet society publicly ac-
cessible Xerox machines are unknown. (The relatively few
copying machines in existence are controlled more inten-
sively than machine guns are in the United States.)
Now the "conservative" position is that we should not
sell these computers to the Soviets, because they could use
them in weapons systems. The "liberal" position is that we
should sell them, in the interests of mutual trade and
cooperation--and anyway, if we don't make the sale, there
will certainly be some other nation willing to.
For my part, I'm ready to suggest that the Libertarian
position should be to give them to the Soviets for free, and
if necessary, make them take them . . . and if that doesn't
work load up an SR-71 Blackbird and air drop them over
Moscow in the middle of the night. Paid for by private sub-
scription, of course, not taxation . . . I confess that this
is not a position that has gained much support among members
of the conventional left-right political spectrum, but, af-
ter all, in the words of one of Illuminatus's characters, we
are political non-Euclideans: The shortest distance to a
particular goal may not look anything like what most people
would consider a "straight line." Taking a long enough
world-view, it is arguable that breaking the Soviet govern-
ment monopoly on information transfer could better lead to
the enfeeblement and, indeed, to the ultimate dissolution of
the Soviet empire than would the production of another dozen
missiles aimed at Moscow.
But there's the rub: A "long enough" world view does
suggest that the evil, the oppressive, the coercive and the
simply stupid will "get what they deserve," but what's not
immediately clear is how the rest of us can escape being
killed, enslaved, or pauperized in the process.
When the liberals and other collectivists began to at-
tack freedom, they possessed a reasonably stable, healthy,
functioning economy, and almost unlimited time to proceed to
hamstring and dismantle it. A policy of political
gradualism was at least conceivable. But now, we have
patchwork crazy-quilt economy held together by baling wire
and spit. The state not only taxes us to "feed the poor"
while also inducing farmers to slaughter milk cows and drive
up food prices--it then simultaneously turns around and sub-
sidizes research into agricultural chemicals designed to in-
crease yields of milk from the cows left alive. Or witness
the fact that a decline in the price of oil is considered as
potentially frightening as a comparable increase a few years
ago. When the price went up, we were told, the economy
risked collapse for for want of energy. The price increase
was called the "moral equivalent of war" and the Feds swung
into action. For the first time in American history, the
speed at which you drive your car to work in the morning be-
came an issue of Federal concern. Now, when the price of
oil drops, again we risk problems, this time because Ameri-
can oil companies and Third World basket-case nations who
sell oil may not be able to ever pay their debts to our
grossly over-extended banks. The suggested panacea is that
government should now re-raise the oil prices that OPEC has
lowered, via a new oil tax. Since the government is seeking
to raise oil prices to about the same extent as OPEC did,
what can we call this except the "moral equivalent of civil
war--the government against its own people?"
And, classically, in international trade, can you imag-
ine any entity in the world except a government going to
court claiming that a vendor was selling it goods too
cheaply and demanding not only that that naughty vendor be
compelled by the court to raise its prices, but also that it
be punished for the act of lowering them in the first place?
So while the statists could afford to take a couple of
hundred years to trash our economy and our liberties--we
certainly cannot count on having an equivalent period of
stability in which to reclaim them. I contend that there
exists almost a "black hole" effect in the evolution of
nation-states just as in the evolution of stars. Once free-
dom contracts beyond a certain minimum extent, the state
warps the fabric of the political continuum about itself to
the degree that subsequent re-emergence of freedom becomes
all but impossible. A good illustration of this can be seen
in the area of so-called "welfare" payments. When those who
sup at the public trough outnumber (and thus outvote) those
whose taxes must replenish the trough, then what possible
choice has a democracy but to perpetuate and expand the tak-
ing from the few for the unearned benefit of the many? Go
down to the nearest "welfare" office, find just two people
on the dole . . . and recognize that between them they form
a voting bloc that can forever outvote you on the question
of who owns your life--and the fruits of your life's labor.
So essentially those who love liberty need an "edge" of
some sort if we're ultimately going to prevail. We obvi-
ously can't use the altruists' "other-directedness" of
"work, slave, suffer, sacrifice, so that next generation of
a billion random strangers can live in a better world."
Recognize that, however immoral such an appeal might be, it
is nonetheless an extremely powerful one in today's culture.
If you can convince people to work energetically for a
"cause," caring only enough for their personal welfare so as
to remain alive enough and healthy enough to continue
working--then you have a truly massive reservoir of energy
to draw from. Equally clearly, this is just the sort of ap-
peal which tautologically cannot be utilized for egoistic or
libertarian goals. If I were to stand up before you tonight
and say something like, "Listen, follow me as I enunciate my
noble "cause," contribute your money to support the "cause,"
give up your free time to work for the "cause," strive
selflessly to bring it about, and then (after you and your
children are dead) maybe your children's children will actu-
ally live under egoism"--you'd all think I'd gone mad. And
of course you'd be right. Because the point I'm trying to
make is that libertarianism and/or egoism will be spread if,
when, and as, individual libertarians and/or egoists find it
profitable and/or enjoyable to do so. And probably only
then.
While I certainly do not disparage the concept of poli-
tical action, I don't believe that it is the only, nor even
necessarily the most cost-effective path toward increasing
freedom in our time. Consider that, for a fraction of the
investment in time, money and effort I might expend in try-
ing to convince the state to abolish wiretapping and all
forms of censorship--I can teach every libertarian who's in-
terested how to use cryptography to abolish them
unilaterally.
There is a maxim--a proverb--generally attributed to
the Eskimoes, which very likely most Libertarians have al-
ready heard. And while you likely would not quarrel with
the saying, you might well feel that you've heard it often
enough already, and that it has nothing further to teach us,
and moreover, that maybe you're even tired of hearing it. I
shall therefore repeat it now:
If you give a man a fish, the saying runs, you feed him
for a day. But if you teach a man how to fish, you feed him
for a lifetime.
Your exposure to the quote was probably in some sort of
a "workfare" vs. "welfare" context; namely, that if you
genuinely wish to help someone in need, you should teach him
how to earn his sustenance, not simply how to beg for it.
And of course this is true, if only because the next time he
is hungry, there might not be anybody around willing or even
able to give him a fish, whereas with the information on how
to fish, he is completely self sufficient.
But I submit that this exhausts only the first order
content of the quote, and if there were nothing further to
glean from it, I would have wasted your time by citing it
again. After all, it seems to have almost a crypto-altruist
slant, as though to imply that we should structure our ac-
tivities so as to maximize the benefits to such hungry
beggars as we may encounter.
But consider:
Suppose this Eskimo doesn't know how to fish, but he
does know how to hunt walruses. You, on the other hand,
have often gone hungry while traveling thru walrus country
because you had no idea how to catch the damn things, and
they ate most of the fish you could catch. And now suppose
the two of you decide to exchange information, bartering
fishing knowledge for hunting knowledge. Well, the first
thing to observe is that a transaction of this type
categorically and unambiguously refutes the Marxist premise
that every trade must have a "winner" and a "loser;" the
idea that if one person gains, it must necessarily be at the
"expense" of another person who loses. Clearly, under this
scenario, such is not the case. Each party has gained some-
thing he did not have before, and neither has been dimin-
ished in any way. When it comes to exchange of information
(rather than material objects) life is no longer a zero-sum
game. This is an extremely powerful notion. The "law of
diminishing returns," the "first and second laws of
thermodynamics"--all those "laws" which constrain our possi-
bilities in other contexts--no longer bind us! Now that's
anarchy!
Or consider another possibility: Suppose this hungry
Eskimo never learned to fish because the ruler of his
nation-state had decreed fishing illegal. Because fish
contain dangerous tiny bones, and sometimes sharp spines, he
tells us, the state has decreed that their consumption--and
even their possession--are too hazardous to the people's
health to be permitted . . . even by knowledgeable, willing
adults. Perhaps it is because citizens' bodies are thought
to be government property, and therefore it is the function
of the state to punish those who improperly care for govern-
ment property. Or perhaps it is because the state gener-
ously extends to competent adults the "benefits" it provides
to children and to the mentally ill: namely, a full-time,
all-pervasive supervisory conservatorship--so that they need
not trouble themselves with making choices about behavior
thought physically risky or morally "naughty." But, in any
case, you stare stupefied, while your Eskimo informant re-
lates how this law is taken so seriously that a friend of
his was recently imprisoned for years for the crime of "pos-
session of nine ounces of trout with intent to distribute."
Now you may conclude that a society so grotesquely
oppressive as to enforce a law of this type is simply an
affront to the dignity of all human beings. You may go far-
ther and decide to commit some portion of your discretion-
ary, recreational time specifically to the task of thwarting
this tyrant's goal. (Your rationale may be "altruistic" in
the sense of wanting to liberate the oppressed, or
"egoistic" in the sense of proving you can outsmart the
oppressor--or very likely some combination of these or per-
haps even other motives.)
But, since you have zero desire to become a martyr to
your "cause," you're not about to mount a military campaign,
or even try to run a boatload of fish through the blockade.
However, it is here that technology--and in particular in-
formation technology--can multiply your efficacy literally a
hundredfold. I say "literally," because for a fraction of
the effort (and virtually none of the risk) attendant to
smuggling in a hundred fish, you can quite readily produce a
hundred Xerox copies of fishing instructions. (If the tar-
geted government, like present-day America, at least permits
open discussion of topics whose implementation is re-
stricted, then that should suffice. But, if the government
attempts to suppress the flow of information as well, then
you will have to take a little more effort and perhaps write
your fishing manual on a floppy disk encrypted according to
your mythical Eskimo's public-key parameters. But as far as
increasing real-world access to fish you have made genuine
nonzero headway--which may continue to snowball as others
re-disseminate the information you have provided. And you
have not had to waste any of your time trying to convert id-
eological adversaries, or even trying to win over the unde-
cided. Recall Harry Browne's dictum from "Freedom in an
Unfree World" that the success of any endeavor is in general
inversely proportional to the number of people whose persua-
sion is necessary to its fulfilment.
If you look at history, you cannot deny that it has
been dramatically shaped by men with names like Washington,
Lincoln, . . . Nixon . . . Marcos . . . Duvalier . . .
Khadaffi . . . and their ilk. But it has also been shaped
by people with names like Edison, Curie, Marconi, Tesla and
Wozniak. And this latter shaping has been at least as per-
vasive, and not nearly so bloody.
And that's where I'm trying to take The LiberTech
Project. Rather than beseeching the state to please not en-
slave, plunder or constrain us, I propose a libertarian net-
work spreading the technologies by which we may seize
freedom for ourselves.
But here we must be a bit careful. While it is not (at
present) illegal to encrypt information when government
wants to spy on you, there is no guarantee of what the fu-
ture may hold. There have been bills introduced, for exam-
ple, which would have made it a crime to wear body armor
when government wants to shoot you. That is, if you were to
commit certain crimes while wearing a Kevlar vest, then that
fact would constitute a separate federal crime of its own.
This law to my knowledge has not passed . . . yet . . . but
it does indicate how government thinks.
Other technological applications, however, do indeed
pose legal risks. We recognize, for example, that anyone
who helped a pre-Civil War slave escape on the "underground
railroad" was making a clearly illegal use of technology--as
the sovereign government of the United States of America at
that time found the buying and selling of human beings quite
as acceptable as the buying and selling of cattle. Simi-
larly, during Prohibition, anyone who used his bathtub to
ferment yeast and sugar into the illegal psychoactive drug,
alcohol--the controlled substance, wine--was using technol-
ogy in a way that could get him shot dead by federal agents
for his "crime"--unfortunately not to be restored to life
when Congress reversed itself and re-permitted use of this
drug.
So . . . to quote a former President, un-indicted co-
conspirator and pardoned felon . . . "Let me make one thing
perfectly clear:" The LiberTech Project does not advocate,
participate in, or conspire in the violation of any law--no
matter how oppressive, unconstitutional or simply stupid
such law may be. It does engage in description (for educa-
tional and informational purposes only) of technological
processes, and some of these processes (like flying a plane
or manufacturing a firearm) may well require appropriate li-
censing to perform legally. Fortunately, no license is
needed for the distribution or receipt of information it-
self.
So, the next time you look at the political scene and
despair, thinking, "Well, if 51% of the nation and 51% of
this State, and 51% of this city have to turn Libertarian
before I'll be free, then somebody might as well cut my
goddamn throat now, and put me out of my misery"--recognize
that such is not the case. There exist ways to make your-
self free.
If you wish to explore such techniques via the Project,
you are welcome to give me your name and address--or a fake
name and mail drop, for that matter--and you'll go on the
mailing list for my erratically-published newsletter. Any
friends or acquaintances whom you think would be interested
are welcome as well. I'm not even asking for stamped self-
addressed envelopes, since my printer can handle mailing la-
bels and actual postage costs are down in the noise compared
with the other efforts in getting an issue out. If you
should have an idea to share, or even a useful product to
plug, I'll be glad to have you write it up for publication.
Even if you want to be the proverbial "free rider" and just
benefit from what others contribute--you're still welcome:
Everything will be public domain; feel free to copy it or
give it away (or sell it, for that matter, 'cause if you can
get money for it while I'm taking full-page ads trying to
give it away, you're certainly entitled to your capitalist
profit . . .) Anyway, every application of these principles
should make the world just a little freer, and I'm certainly
willing to underwrite that, at least for the forseeable fu-
ture.
I will leave you with one final thought: If you don't
learn how to beat your plowshares into swords before they
outlaw swords, then you sure as HELL ought to learn before
they outlaw plowshares too.
--Chuck Hammill
THE LIBERTECH PROJECT
-///-
???????????????????????????????????????
? Vesoft and the Hewlett Packard 3000 ?
? by Black IC ?
???????????????????????????????????????
There have been numerous articles written about the Hewlett Packard
3000 and how to break the system. This write up does not deal solely with
the HP3000 but with the addon for tighter security by the VESOFT corporation.
As time goes on and people begin to see the need for better security
and a more productive system, it's becoming harder to exploit any weakness
that could be on said system. That's where VESOFT comes in.
VESOFT
1135 S. Beverly Dr.
Los Angeles, CA
90035-1119
(310) 282-0420
(310) 785-9566 (Fax)
They have been supporting Hewlett Packards since 1980 with excellent
addons for the HP3000. In the following paragraphs I discuss the various
utilites that VESOFT employs and what you might expect on a VESOFT secured
system.
?????????????
? MPEX 3000 ?
?????????????
The MPEX addon emulates and implements virtually all of the MPE/iX
user interface features (variables, command files, implied :RUN, :CALC,
:COPY, :PRINT, etc) on MPE/V. Not only does this add a lot of power to the
MPE/V system, but it also lets you use the same job streams on MPE/V and on
the MPE/iX (If the owner of the Hewlett Packard has both setups!)
So initially you wont see a difference with the target system. Also
if the system has VESOFT installed and not on the other systems their,
that's not an issue right now cause if you are experienced with the 3000
series and the likes you will be able to navigate with out a problem.
?????????????????
? VE AUDIT 3000 ?
?????????????????
The Audit program from VESOFT is a resecurement utility very similar
to the SATAN program for UNIX. The purpose of VE AUDIT is to check the
system for loopholes and to assist the Manager/System Administrator in
resecuring the system. VE AUDIT takes the laborous job of checking accounts
(LISTACCT), users (LISTUSER), and groups (LISTGROUP) to see who has what
access, capabilities, no passwords, etc. The program goes through everything
and then reports to manager what loopholes (if any) are found and what is the
suggested step to resecure that system. This program can also be used to
alter the system accounting structure as well as look at it with a new set
of commands.
The program is run when you set the attributes (password, capability,
access mask). List them in one or two line object format. Create an MPEX
command file that will rebuild the accounting structure when the program is
executed. Purge them after prompting.
As you can see this program will assist the manager/system
administrator in an easy to use manner and allows the system security to be
tightened in a way that was not as easy on the standard HP3000.
?????????????????
? SECURITY 3000 ?
?????????????????
The VESOFT security program works in several ways to secure the
Hewlett Packard system. Most HP3000 systems will allow users to log on to
the system using a non-unique name and generic session name with a session
password (i.e. JOE.PAYROLL as opposed to JOE,CLERK.PAYROLL). The VESOFT
program will no matter what format the system uses to establish identity
allow the use of a session name and a password for that individual, thus
increasing the security 10-fold. It will also eliminate the annoying habit of
users omitting the session name since the MPE operating system considers it
optional.
Changing of passwords become manditory through the security program.
Saving the account manger time by having a set time period for the users
to change their passwords (i.e. every 30 days or as set).
Some HP3000 systems when accessed give the user access to the MPE
prompt ":" which most users don't need access to all the commands. VESOFT now
sets up a menu of options which allows the user to use the given choices
and nothing else.
If the system has dial-ups the security program allows passwords on
a terminal by terminal basis thus adding in a second password to protect the
system. Thus anyone calling up not only has to get past the dial-up sequence
but they also have to log in to the system as if they were at the console.
If the system is run on networks then the program will synchronize the
network and allow file transfers with out actually logging into the
receiving system. Users will also have to login to a system at a different
terminal just as if they were at that console.
Embedded passwords are probably one of the biggest threats to HP3000
systems along with shared passwords and passwords that have not been changed
in a long time. It then is easier for someone to access the system seeing as
it will be easier to figure out. Once a password has become embed the ability
to change it in a job stream is very hard and time consuming. The security
program comes with what is called the "STREAMX" module which will do all the
handy work for the account manager.
Logoff now has a built in timer so those users that are idle or leave
the system unattended for a given amount of time will automatically be logged
off and the integrity of the system brought back to normal.
This covers the basics of the VESOFT programs. As you can see any
entry into an HP3000 using VESOFT will not react as usual and the
accessibility has been changed to that of seriously protected. I'll save the
coverage of surveillance social engineering and dumpster diving for others.
What I will say is you need to have a firm grasp of the target system and its
users.
??????????????
? DEFAULTS ?
??????????????
The following is a list of some of the defaults in the Hewlett Packard
MPEX System used on the 3000 and the likes. Keep in mind that a resecured
system is going to have the defaults removed and replaced with a tighter
setup. Remote login maintenance has been a pride and joy of Hewlett packard
owners. It is also one of the most exploited in terms of malicious entry.
With the VESOFT programs properly installed the usual one password entry
for remote will now be two. The default accounts are almost always open if
they still exist. Aside from "dumpster diving" you should consider social
engineering names and as much info as possible about the system you are
attempting to get in on, just incase you are asked for a password. Sometimes
you will come across a system that uses the "terminal password" at login.
This is an old option and thus being an option does not have any defaults.
operator.cognos mgr.hpword field.hpword
manager.hpoffice mgr.hpoffice wp.hpoffice
spoolman.hpoffice mailman.hpoffice advmail.hpoffice
mail.hpoffice field.support operator.support
operator.sys rsbcmon.sys pcuser.sys
operator.system operator.disc mgr.xlserver
manager.itf3000 sys.telesup manager.security
mgr.conv mgr.rje mgr.hpp187
mgr.hpp189 mgr.hpp196 field.hpp187
mgr.intx3 mgr.carolian manager.tch
mgr.word mgr.telesup field.service
operator.disc mgr.ccc field.hpunsup
field.hp mgr.hpp189 mgr.hpp196
mail.mail mail.netbase mgr.rego
mgr.rje mgr.robelle mgr.cnas
mgr.hpdesk mgr.robelle mgr.vesoft
I hope this write up will provoke more interest in the Hewlett Packard
systems namely the HP3000. If you have any comments or wish to discuss these
systems more indepth please feel free to contact me at the following e-mail
address:
black.ic@iirg.com
Hope to hear from some of you.
Black IC/IIRG
---/////---
Unless otherwise noted Cybertek Electric is Copyright (C)1996 by
OCL/Magnitude, P.O. Box 64, Brewster, NY 10509. All Rights Reserved.
Noncommercial reproduction is encouraged provided this electronic publication
is redistributed in its entirety with credits intact. Cybertek Electric is
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Please send any feedback, questions, and/or submissions to either of the email
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|\ /| /\ / |\ | Thomas Icom/IIRG
| >< | < > / | \ |\ The Blackthorn Project
|/ \| \/ < | | > <ticom@l0pht.com> <thomas.icom@iirg.com>
| | /\ \ \ | |/ International Information Retrieval Guild
| | / \ \ \| | "May Odin guide your way!"
Madhr er manna gaman, ok moldar auki, ok skipa skreytir.
<End of Text>